Friday, June 29, 2018

The Immediate Book Meme

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

The American South: A History, by William Cooper and Thomas TerrillA two-volume textbook (here in one complete volume) that starts at Jamestown. It's a useful reference to me for my own textbook project.

The Long Goodbye, by Raymond ChandlerChandler is an American master. Do yourself a favor and re-read this. I won't insult you by insinuating that you haven't read it at all.

Lots of Agatha Christie.

A few Roman novels by Lindsay Davis.I dunno. I tried a variety to see if perhaps the first one just rubbed me the wrong way, but these left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that she's writing about a different culture with different mores, but the human behavior of the characters often felt off to me.

3. What do you plan to read next?

More Chandler.

The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh FermorDarwin bought me this, the final book of Leigh Fermor's travel memoir trilogy about walking across Europe in the 30s, at Powell's in Portland.

Kurosawa put an illicit romantic love, or should it be rather poetic lust, sequence in Seven Samurai. He said later it was the mistake he regretted the most and that such things cannot be presented in art.

In this, and in many other ways in all his films, Kurosawa displays an almost Catholic understanding.

Contributors

Reading

With the Catholic News sites discussing the Vatican's move to reform the LCWR, I pulled this slim volume written back in 1986 off the shelf to re-read. It's a quick and amusing read: a satirical view of the breakdown and renewal of reli...

I'd never read any Henry James before, though I did see the Nicole Kidman movie adaptation of Portrait of a Lady some years ago because... well, because it was a costume drama with Nicole Kidman in it.
This was one of those novels I ...

If you, like me, have been reared on tales of the second World War as the just and virtuous struggle of the "greatest generation", Evelyn Waugh's arch novels (based loosely on his own war experiences) are an important and darkly enjoyabl...

This was the first time in some years that I've re-read this Austen novel, one of the quieter and shorter ones, but one which has ranked among my favorites. It was striking me, on this pass, that it rather shows the effects of having be...